


The Cycle of the Rose

by theslytherwin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Humor, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Inspired by Twitter, Prisoner of War, Redemption, Reylo - Freeform, Rose Tico Deserved Better, Twitter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22349230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theslytherwin/pseuds/theslytherwin
Summary: The first thing Armitage Hux saw when he woke up are the hauntingly beautiful eyes of Rose Tico. After being injured for funneling First Order secrets to the Resistance, Hux has to faces the crimes and mistakes of his past in order to earn his freedom--and maybe earn the attention of a certain Resistance engineer along the way.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 16
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published as a Twitter fic at @theslytherwin. The work has been compiled here and lightly edited.

The bright lights of the medical bay slowly come into focus.

General Hux weakly turns to the side.

There next to him is Rose Tico, staring at him with hatred and...admiration?

“You aided my friends. You helped save the Resistance. Why?”

Hux turns away, afraid of his own answer.

* * *

  
The first thing people realized after the war was just how loud the galaxy was.

The Exegol fleet had been destroyed, but the First Order’s massive legions still ripped through the galaxy, as pirates, warlords, and rump governments struggled for a place among the ashes of battle. The stars bled, and the people of the galaxy could not shut their ears against the drums of war.

The first thing Armitage Hux realized after the war was just how quiet the galaxy was.

He didn’t remember what happened after being shot. He remembered the emotions. He remembered fear, the fear of loss. He remembered shame, shame at letting down his father’s vision for the galaxy die. He remembered a voice. A voice telling him he wouldn’t escape justice by just dying.

Truth be told, as light began to replace darkness and time started to turn again, Hux wished he had died.

“Do you know who I am,” a voice in the growing light asked, emotions flat in their voice.

“I—”

As the world came in focus and he looked over to his side, Hux realized he knew exactly who the voice belonged to. That face, scrunched into a veneer of command and coldness, wasn’t one Hux could forget. Some wounds heal, but insults to pride were indelible wounds to men like Hux. And a bite from a prisoner awaiting execution was more insulting than most things Hux had endured under Kylo Ren’s abominable handling of the war. Yes, he knew her.

“Tico. I fed your unit First Order secrets during the last year of the war. I presume you know who I am, then?” He stared to push himself up on the back of the bed, trying to hold his torso to match his rightful station.

The rebel didn’t notice. “Armitage Hux. You’re responsible for the dreadnoughts.”

Hux was taken aback. That wasn’t the response he had expected, “The stormtrooper program was my main area—but yes, I had a hand in their construction.”

Hux’s eyes seemed to catch hers completely for the first time, and he could see their fullness. They were a deep brown, complex and infinitely full. Their darkness was only a mirror for the brightness they contained. The dark eyes seemed to take Hux in, searching for something.

“My sister died taking out one of your ships.”

“I am...sorry for her loss.”

Rose Tico’s cheeks started to flush. Quiet fury rang in her voice, “Are you?”

Hux raised his chest fully, his back leaning against the wall. Without hesitation, he looked her in the eyes with unblinking certainty.

“Yes. I am.”

The rebel seemed unsure how to react, so she looked away, swallowing slowly some emotion that had started to well up in her.

“I’ll ask you again,” Tico asked, any previous admiration or any other emotion replaced by impatience. “Why did you turn to the Resistance?”

“I told your friends on the ship.” Hux said, his eyes now refusing to meet hers. “I didn’t want the Resistance to win-”

“-you wanted Kylo Ren to lose, yes I heard. So,” the rebel commander pulled a chair towards his bed, “what’s the real reason you saved us?”

Hux didn’t respond—he simply did not have a response, not one that he was willing to share, anyways. That was the only story she needed to know. The galaxy would only ever know this one tale. And that’s how Hux wanted it.

For a long time neither of them said anything. Eventually, Hux could hear the tapping of a finger on screen as the rebel started scrolling through a datapad.

“If It were up to me, we would never have rescued you from the First Order scrap,” he could hear her voice retreating to flatness again. “but General Dameron thinks you might be useful. So we’re going to give you a chance.”

Hux hadn’t expected those words to follow so quickly after a murder accusation. “A chance for what?”

Tico pursed her lips impatiently, “A chance to be useful. To maybe do some good.”

Hux had returned to full attention. His enemy with the full, dark eyes was offering him...something. But he didn’t know what it was. He wasn’t even sure it was his enemy that was offering it. “The intel I gave you. It was good.”

“Your intel was instrumental in preventing a massacre on Onderon,” Tico had started to look more closely at the screen of the datapad, ostensibly to enter orders, but Hux suspected it was to avoid showing him the resigned agreement on her face. “and allowed the Resistance to escape the First Order without loses on several occasions.”

Hux didn’t know what he should feel. Vindication that he had played a part in changing the balance of power in the war? Horror that he had sold out the only thing he and his father had ever cared about? Yet something was stopping him from forming his judgment. And that something was sitting next to him.

Caution mounting, Tico continued, “I don’t like you Hux, and I don’t trust you. But you neither fall under the category of prisoner of war nor defector. Until we can figure out what to do with you-”

If Hux was capable of it, his face would be approaching a smile “-I’m yours.”

* * *

Hux spent a long time in recovery. He still wasn’t certain how he managed to survive. Maybe he had imagined that voice that had spoken to him in the haze between death and life?

The commander with the dark eyes returned periodically. She never explained why she was returning, and only ever asked him a few trivial questions. Nothing about the secrets of the First Order or command codes...simple questions. Sometimes even personal questions.

Hux knew he was neither a prisoner nor free. He was neither being interrogated nor asked freely for information. Life hung in a middle place. The only sign that the galaxy continued to spiral were the visits from the commander.

Eventually the visits stopped. For a long time, it seemed like Hux would be continue his isolation. Maybe this was his punishment. Not execution, not hard labor, but the monotony of existence until the very end. In the dead of space, the only semblance of time is based on when the lights turn out. In Hux’s medical bay, the lights never went out. He strongly suspected it was an intentional tactic to disorient him. Even time began to lose its meaning. Without the commander with the dark eyes, his senses began to slip away.

Finally, at the edge of time and the farthest extent of reason, there appeared a light once more. It was the light glinting off the eyes of the resistance commander whose visits had ended so long ago. Those eyes gave Hux, what was left of Hux, a feeling he barely recognized. Hope.

“You’ve been kept well-fed? Taken care of?” A hint of care crept into her voice. In her hands was a large duffel, which she seemed to be gripping tighter than the bag warranted.

“Yes, though I didn’t care for the irregularity of the meals.” Hux’s voice sounded surprisingly collected, but utterly foreign to himself. “The entertainment could have been more frequent too.”

“Sorry. High Command’s idea, not mine.”

“To disorient me, I know.” Hux understood fully. The First Order used similar processes, but Hux had never imagined what the forced loss of something so basic and precious as time could do to a person. Yes, there were droids and holos, it wasn’t exactly solitary confinement. Yet the lack of human contact was devastating.

“Can I ask—?”

“Since you first got here? About six months now. We’ve received your vitals daily and you seemed to have made a fully recovery.”

“Ah, good,” Hux went to adjust a collar that wasn’t there, “That is good, correct?”

“General Dameron thinks it is. He’s ordered your release. Conditionally.” Tico didn’t seem to enjoy saying the words. Her eyes shone like always, but he saw weariness there too.

“What conditions?”

The commander seemed to pause with reluctance, but she clearly had no other option. “We’re trying to build a new government. An improvement on the New Republic, which you destroyed.”

Hux didn’t know if it was his affected senses or something else, but he felt a sensation in the pit of his stomach. One he was barely acquainted with. Guilt.

“The wars won’t end if we keep doing the same thing over and over again. It all ends the same way every time. We need to be better.”

In spite of the situation, Hux couldn't help but smirk. He recognized it as the idealism that he had so often sought to stamp out in his stormtroopers. “And your general somehow convinced you of this?”

“I convinced him,” Tico’s voice rang in an almost hallow whisper, “Unlike you, I don’t believe in destroying what I hate.”

Those words. What strange, strange words. What was war, if not an attack on that which you despise? What was order without strangling the undesirable? What was power without fear from the despicable dregs of society?

The rebel commander continued. “As a civilian government is being assembled, amnesty has been recommended for all political prisoners. But amnesty comes with a price.”

Hux nodded, awaiting the news he inevitably knew was coming. They’d throw him to the mines of a Kessel for 15 years if he was lucky. If he wasn’t-

“And that price?”

“Service. We’ll offer you a chance to right your wrongs.”

It wasn’t quite the back-breaking labor he had expected. “You’re pressing me into your Resistance?”

Rose shrugged, nonplussed. “Call it whatever you like. It’s more than the First Order ever offered.”

She threw the bag at him. It landed on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. “Get dressed, we’re going.”

Hux knew it would be wiser not to ask questions. Anywhere was better than this awful room. Even if it meant working with...well, who were they to him now?

He started to take off his shirt with the speed of a man who had just stepped off the execution block with their head and shoulders attached—which, he essentially had, in his mind.

“Ah,” Rose was staring at him, but her voice indicated uneasiness, “I’ll just give you a minute.”

Hux’s full chest was exposed, his hands halfway towards pulling his trousers off. As he stood for the first time in ages, he realized just how short the commander was in relation to him. He could feel his ears turn red.

“Right. Yes. Thank you, Tico.”

Trying not to look as she left, she said “You’ll call me Commander Tico, Lieutenant.”

“Pardon? Lieutenant?”

The doors shut on an incredulous, half-naked Lieutenant Hux.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux is given a mission to fulfill in order to win his freedom. If only he could tell Rose the plan without fainting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally published as a Twitter fic at @theslytherwin. The work has been compiled here and lightly edited.

A collar and a pair of black gloves. Finally, Hux was starting to feel like himself again.

It wasn’t exactly a uniform—plain white tunic, khaki slacks, and an empty belt that slung too-loosely down his hips. He wasn’t used to feeling so free in his clothes, and he was pretty sure he didn’t like it.

He was bothered by the soldiers who seemed to be wearing their shirt open a few buttons too many, as if their wardrobe had to scream “I’m a rebel!” In his own act of rebellion, Hux buttoned the shirt to his chin, making sure it pinched at his throat, and he tugged at it for comfort. Yes, that was much better.

When he looked over, he could see the Resistance Starbird—the symbol of everything he had ever hated—staring at him from the shoulder of his shirt. It seemed to be glowering at him, laughing even. Hux tried his best to ignore it. He wasn’t sure it was working.

“We have a mission for you, but we need information first.” Rose said as they walked down the corridor, shoulder-to-shoulder despite the wide corridors, “If you give us the intel we need and we accomplish our objective, you’ll receive a full pardon from the provisionary Chancellor herself.”

As she walked, the commander seemed to prompt respect from everyone she passed. Hux found it curious though that their respect for her seemed to lack any noticeable fear. What kind of command lacked that uniquely powerful quality? Her effectiveness, Hux assumed, would only ever go so far as long as the next officer in line did not fear reprisal if they should attempt to seize command for themselves.

The young commander clearly gave no thought to the tactical hole that her command style so obviously engendered. Her face did not elevate in response to her soldiers. Instead, she gave many of them a quick smile or a small wave. Many of those assembled troops’ attires matched the dreadfully breathable uniform that Hux had been stuffed in. Rose’s clothing was similar, save for the half-moon necklace dangling around her neck. Hux had seen it many times before. In fact, she never seemed to remove it. If he ever got the chance, he was curious to ask what it was supposed to signify. Then again, if he ever got the chance, she would probably be on the other side of the execution block she led him on to.

“We’ve captured or stopped production at most major First Order shipyards.” Rose’s last smile to a passing major hardened to a motionless stare down the corridor as she turned her attention towards Hux once more. “But every day, more ships arrive from nowhere. We suspect a planet-wide factory is still in operation, but we can’t locate it.”

Hux understood. “And you want me to find it for you.”

“What we want” Rose responded impatiently, unappreciative of his interruption, “is for you to tell us where the planet is.”

He understood her annoyance. When he was in command, he never would have accepted interruption from a subordinate. The shock was that now _he_ was the subordinate. He was still getting used to his new status and was still failing to grasp what it meant to not be in charge.

As they approached their destination, it dawned on Hux that Rose seemed to have been avoiding his eyes since they started their walk. Maybe it was all the time he had been trapped alone in his quarters, but he was missing their incandescent glow. A silly thought, Hux knew, as he forced Rose’s radiance out of his mind.

They emerged on the bridge of what Hux finally recognized as an old Hammerhead—a ship considered old a century ago and was now damned near ancient. The ship was lightly crewed, and a small group stood on deck.

Rose approached the conn, as if ready to leave whatever forgettable rock the ship happened to be orbiting currently. “As soon as you tell us the location, we’ll jump to the site and prepare to strike”

“We?’

“We.”

Hux felt a lump rising in this throat. “You said all you wanted from me was the location of the planet.”

Rose’s moved the hair out of her face, almost as if to make the roll of her eyes more obvious to Hux. “I also said you could earn your pardon for service to our cause.”

Hux pursed his lips but said nothing. He was anxious about the idea of being deployed himself, but he was not overly surprised by it. Besides, after months of time-bending isolation, restricted to a single room—well, going planet-side did not sound too terrible.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Another eyeroll. “The location?”

“What, here?” Hux looked around incredulously. Not only was he expected to share valuable military secrets, he was supposed to do so with unknown soldiers who didn’t know port from starboard?

Rose snapped back, “Would you rather us do it back in your room? I can arrange that.”

Hux’s eyes widened with fear. Fear and, perhaps, astonishment at the outspokenness of this young rebel. “No that-that will not be necessary.”

“Good,” the commander scanned Hux up and down. Her eyes still refused to meet his but seemed to search his body for some unknown answer.

“This is your team, that’s Hepseba—” pointing to a twi’lek with deep purple hues running across her body, and head tails that seemed remarkably short for her species. “Pahl”—a young human with light brown skin, their hair tied in a bun and tucked into their shirt nondescriptly. “Mari and Madi”—two identical women of an unknown humanoid species, whose hair seemed to change color as they wobbled in the light, “and Jannah.”

The last one, Jannah, carried one of the largest blasters Hux had seen a single person use. Her dark skin shone fiercely beneath the grey of her jacket, and her uniform was adorned with a patchwork of nonstandard bands. And she was staring at Hux with bitter, dripping contempt.

Her eyes fixated on Hux’s, scanning him. Whereas Hux had only moments ago thought it peculiar that Rose would not meet his gaze, anxiety crept up his spine as Jannah locked her eyes with his. There was something about this woman that seemed to see beyond the mere light of his pupils. Like she could see his soul. Not his soul as Hux knew his life’s story, but only the sins that had been carved there indelibly, beyond the distortions of personal truth.

The commander didn’t seem to notice, or at least, didn’t seem concerned by it. She marched in front of the group and said in Hux’s direction, “This is our infiltration team. Most of them are engineers and computers experts, but they are all trained soldiers too.”

Despite his unease, Hux laughed incredulously. “A small strike team? Against a planet? Why is it always a small strike team with you rebels?”

Rose fingered her blaster in its holster and gave a half-smile, nearly but not quite fully meeting Hux’s eyes this time. “Because it always works.”

Hux sighed lowly. He had great respect for acts of military exactness, but with the rebels, it was not about precision. Their “small strike teams” were only born of guerilla necessity. They were nothing compared the sweeping legions of stormtroopers that Hux could command to seize assets with overwhelming firepower.

Or, well, the sweeping legions he used to command. Oops. Again. 

After a moment in his own thoughts, Hux realized that the assemblage was staring at him expectantly. “So, I suppose,” Hux looked around unsure, “we just, erm-”

“The information, Lieutenant,” the commander said sharply.

“Now,” added the woman with the large blaster, Jannah. Her hands were to the side, but Hux could see them twitch, itching to pull out her weapon and aim it at him.

Hux felt something arise from the deepest pit of his self. Something as much a part of him as his limbs. And it was telling him to stop, screaming at Hux on the cellular level. As he opened his mouth to say something, he felt his limbs lose all their strength, the blood drain from his head, and darkness swirl all around him right before his chin struck the floor.

As his mind swirled in the black, Hux saw images. The great many things he had done. The pride of his life, his father’s dream, the magnificent Starkiller Base. And he saw the people he killed with it. At the time it seemed logical—to destroy an enemy, you must make them bow completely. Only fear could hold the galaxy together. Without fear there was no order, and without order the galaxy was a mass of chaos greater than any superweapon.

But losing the war...well it made all that death at Hux’s hands seem rather pointless.

Yet now he was what? A rebel? He had heard of defectors from the First Order before, officers who decided they would rather jump ship—sometimes quite literally. Perhaps Hux could defect from this rebellion too. But to what? A crumbling empire?

Was it possible this new government represented the best hope to bring order to a chaotic galaxy? He wasn’t sure he believed that. In fact, Hux knew he didn’t believe that. Yet as long as he was at the mercy of the Resistance, he wasn’t a rebel. Without being given a choice, he was only a prisoner.

Yet, if the time came when he was given a choice…what would he do then?

The twilight felt like minutes, or days, or maybe hours. Time can be slippery when it is yanked away unexpectedly. When his eyes opened, he was on his back and staring at the great mess of glossy black hair that belonged to his commanding officer.

“Where are we?”

For the briefest second, Hux saw Rose’s eyebrows raised in something he almost thought was a look of concern. Whatever it was, it was replaced by a grimace almost instantaneously. She looked at Hux, indirectly of course, and seemed to be messing with the fit of her gloves as she answered. “Still on the ship, but in a shuttle. Y’know, our mission? If we had the intel we needed?”

“Yes. I—” Hux started to get up but felt his stomach immediately tell him to lay back down. “You at my bedside. We’re starting to make a real habit of it.”

The commander actually smirked at that. “Don’t count on it.”

She paused for a second. For a moment, Hux thought he might finally see her dark eyes again. Instead, she looked toward his pillow. “What happened back there?”

Hux leaned back in the threadbare cot the shuttle had stashed away for medical emergencies. “Military secrets...well they’re just that, they’re secret. As a kid, I received certain...conditioning. Programming which prevents me from betraying the Order.”

“Like the conditioning the stormtroopers have?”

“The same, actually.”

Rose paused and pursed her lips in thought. Then, still right next to Hux’s face, Rose screamed, “JANNAH!”

Still flinching as the soldier walked in, Hux saw the hatred in Jannah’s eyes return the moment she walked through the threshold. Rose got up and whispered something that Hux couldn’t hear into Jannah’s ears. Shortly after, the commander left the room and Jannah walked forward.

“The commander wants me to help you break your conditioning.”

“It’s impossible. It’s stormtrooper training, it’s the best, most effective training in the galaxy. No one can break through it.”

“I did.” Jannah replied, pride peeking through her hatred. “Others did too.”

“Ah, you used to be one of us then. That’s why you’ve been looking at my with such...righteous fury this whole time.” Despite himself, Hux felt old habits returning. “What’s your number, trooper?”

“My name is Jannah.”

“But it wasn’t always.”

“No. It wasn’t. But you don’t get the privilege of hearing the name you chose for me. Jannah is the name I choose for me.” Her tone made it clear the topic was not open for further discussion.

Hux could not resist the smug sneer that crept on to his face. “Very well... _Jannah_...so how did you do it? What makes you so special?”

“Do you really want to know? What makes me special?”

Hux did, though his willingness to engage in the conversation was already rapidly deteriorating. His mind was being sapped by the mental concentration needed to prevent himself from slipping again into unconsciousness.

“Nothing.” She hissed it so quietly it was almost a whisper. “I’m not special or different at all. Your training is a trick, an illusion sustained by lies and belief. All it takes to escape it is to see through the lies, to believe you are more than your conditioning. Because that’s what we are. Beings beyond your or anyone else’s control.”

Despite the beating in his temples, Hux managed to roll his eyes. “Yes, that’s a lovely speech, but what does it actually mean? Come now trooper, we do not speak in parable and metaphor.”

Before he knew it, Jannah’s blaster was off her back and pointed between his eyes.

“I am not your trooper. I would be happy-HAPPY-to kill you where you lay. Please, give me a reason to.”

It wasn’t fear he felt. Hux had had blasters pointed in his face before—that he could deal with. Disobedience was another thing, and the only answer he had for that was anger. Through his teeth, Hux hissed at her, “Your commander needs me.”

“She’ll find another way.”

“No, she won’t.” Rage pinched at his throat. He could feel blood rushing to his face as Jannah’s defiant words slapped him with insubordination. “You rebels never do.”

Hux pushed his head into the muzzle of the blaster, something beyond fury swelling in him. Face to face with a disobedient trooper, he could feel the years of command and status reasserting itself. He was a general, and who was she? A soldier, and a traitor.

“The place you’re looking for is so far away from your precious Resistance, you will never get there without me. The Lianas system isn’t on any maps that your meager resources can access!”

Jannah gave the tiniest smile and withdrew her weapon. “There it is, thanks for the intel.”

Hux was dumbfounded. The words had not meant to come out, but had instead poured from him in a combination of anger and relief. “I don’t understand. The conditioning—it shouldn’t be possible.”

Jannah stayed closed to Hux, her eyes once again peering at something beyond his being.

“Your training teaches us to be emotionless, less than human. You give us numbers so that we are not individuals, you give us armor so that we are not distinct. But we are human—I am human. And you cannot contain our nature.”

“And what is my nature?”

“Your nature, _Lieutenant_ ” she layered this reminder of his lowly status with dripping irony, “is anger for that which you see as worth less than you. Foolish, but it’s true.”

Hux ignored her comment, his anger spent for the moment. The burst of strength his anger had granted him was once again subsumed by the weakness the conditioning brought on. He understood, at least as much as he could. “So you were trying to anger me enough that the information could get past the conditioned barrier.”

“Or frighten you, it’s all the same to me.”

Jannah slung her weapon over her shoulders once more and started to move to the door. She turned back one more time with a burning look directed straight towards Hux. “Don’t let that performance fool you though. I meant what I said. If you get out of line or try to betray us, I will kill you. Not hesitation, no mercy.”

Hux believed her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deadly mission and a deadlier choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally published as a Twitter fic at @theslytherwin. The work has been compiled here and lightly edited.

The mission should not have been complicated. Rose’s team was to descend on the factory world of Liara. Using Hux’s unique access codes, the team would shut down production from the world’s central computer. Simple.

It shouldn’t have gone so horribly wrong.

“Liara is a massive shipyard.” Hux walked around a faint blue projection of the planet in question, as his team gathered to listen. “It’s bigger than Kuat or Corellia, but it has one major disadvantage.” Hux motioned with his arm to zoom in on a building, the security grid of the planet. “It’s relatively unguarded against a ground assault. It is located deep in First Order space-”

“What remain of First Order space,” huffed Jannah with a smirk.

He tried ignoring the comment, though he could feel heat rising in him at Jannah’s snark. “Yes, well, it is far enough from what used to be the New Republic that the risk of an attack on the planet is generally considered negligible. Just to reach that far into First Order territory, a Resistance fleet would have to run an impossible number of blockades in the border regions—and that if only if they knew how to get there. As it is, the planet’s location is one of the galaxy’s best kept secrets.

“So they would never expect an attack.” Mari remarked

Hux wrinkled at being constantly interrupted by those under his command—only he was no longer actually in command.

“Quite. Now, with the decimation of the First Order fleet and scattering of its forces into pockets, the blockade of First Order space has become loose and penetrable. It is now possible for a small shuttle like ours to slip through the blockade and into First Order territory. Giving up the name of the system has allowed the Resistance to find the planet’s location in captured archives, but not the accompanying navigational data. As far I am aware, that information has never been recorded, but transferred as oral information only, to protect the secrecy of the location. I alone can guide us to the location without being caught in a dark nebula or the core of a star.”

Hepseba nodded, her head tails shaking rhythmically as she did. “So how do we access the central computer?”

This time, Rose herself shot a glance at the engineer who had interrupted Hux—though why she waited until this interruption was a mystery to him. Hux actually appreciated it, Rose’s momentary respect for authority

“The computer can only be accessed biometrically. Only the top commanders of Liara’s operations and the highest levels of the First Order are granted access, and it can only be done physically.”

“Fortunately,” Rose added, “the First Order still thinks Hux is dead.”

The hologram moved in concert with Hux’s words, “From there I can disable security and halt production. Thanks to my rank-ehm, former rank in the First Order,” Hux stifled at that, remembering again the lowly rank he currently held “I can close the system off from any but the Supreme Leader.”

“And there is no Supreme Leader.” Rose let a small grin emerge on her face, though kept it pointed at everyone but Hux. “As the Lieutenant guides us to Liara, the shuttle’s navicomputer will track our flight path. Once the Lieutenant navigates us to the planet, we help him reach the planetary computer core and shut down production at the shipyards. Easy.”

It was slightly less than easy.

Getting past planet security was simple enough. Hux, after all, created many of the complex access codes that the First Order used. Landing nearby the building that houses the core computer systems did not present further problems. After all, it was the tallest single building in a sea of low-hanging shipyards. Of course, the beginning always does go well, doesn’t it?

“They’ll be waiting for us outside. You’ll all follow behind me.”

Rose was wearing the teal uniform of a senior First Order officer. The rest had changed into matching gray.

Hux felt more relaxed despite the oncoming danger. He had secured a black uniform, and the pinch around his stomach told Hux he was home. Minus the gaggle of rebel spies.

As they prepared to exit the ship, Hux, almost without realizing what he was doing, grabbed Rose’s wrist. “Commander.”

Rose’s eyes finally met his for the first time since he had left his confinement. They were the radiance Hux remembered from the stolen glances while in confinement. The thoughts that had been bubbling beneath his conscious mind burgeoned closer and closer to tearing into reality. The things Rose made Hux feel but which he dared not name threatened to overwhelm him.

“Lieutenant I—”

She stared for a moment longer. Inside her eyes swirled a galaxy of emotions, and they pleaded for him to see her. And Hux _could_ see her. Hux saw her as he had seen her the first time, on the _Supremacy_. Bent before him, at his complete mercy, and utterly helpless. Despite all of that, defiant to the point of death. But that wasn’t her, that was only what he saw. She was much more. Out beyond the fire of determination blazing in her eyes was that longing. Desperate, begging longing for something lost. To say something, to have something. And maybe she could see that longing in him too.

“Let go of my wrist.” She said quietly. Not quite devoid of emotion, but with restraint in her voice and an unwillingness to hold on to that yearning feeling they recognized in each other.

“Yes, Commander.” Hux did as she asked, but was otherwise unmoving, still stunned by what was silently passing between them. As Rose’s posture began to stiffen somewhat, he felt compelled to say something to fill the quiet void. “I wanted to wish you luck”

A pause. Her eyes retreated and Hux was alone again.

“Thank you.”

Hux and Rose exited the shuttle to find the remainder of the strike team huddled close together, seemingly unsure of themselves. It didn’t take Hux long to realize why. Just in front of the shuttle bay doors stood a short First Order officer, grandstanding in front of a pair of troopers.

“You are entirely unwelcome here, Colonel. There are protocols for these kinds of visits. Now, if the paperwork had been filed for an inspection, then I—”

He never reached the next word

“Boring conversation, really. Couldn’t get a word in.” Jannah said. She pointed her smoking weapon at the two troopers. She had fired and gotten her blaster in their faces before that had even had time to react. “You two, guns, now.”

“Jannah.” Rose sighed but without surprise.

Despite his long years of experience, Hux had been unable to guess the security patterns that might have been instituted in the building, so the plan was to enter from multiple vectors. Hux was left with Hepseba and Rose, while the others infiltrated from another section, hoping to secure the computer core for Hux if they made it there first.

“We could split up more if you’d give a blaster,” growled Hux as they walked with their knees bent and their backs pressed up against the wall.

“You want me to give you a weapon and leave you on your own?” Rose scoffed.

Hux leaned down and hissed back, “I got you this far.”

“Under my supervision” she retorted, staring upwards at him. Her head barely reached his neck, but her defiance extended much higher.

Hux wanted to keep arguing but a sound began down the hall. Footsteps.

“Hide.” Rose murmured.

They leapt back into an adjourning hall and waited in deadly silence, their eyes glued to the troopers. Each step echoed so loudly in Hux’s head that he was sure they were about to turn into their hallway and discover them. The drumming of their steps got louder and louder until suddenly Hux realized he could no longer hear them. They had turned a corner and the sound of their steps had receded into nothing.

Hux heaved a sigh of relief.

He heaved a sigh of relief a little too early.

“Freeze! Drop your weapons.”

Hux’s stomach did a back flip, followed by a somersault. The anxiety of listening to the troopers before shot right back up his spine. They had been so busy watching the hall they had left, that they hadn’t noticed the one they were in.

“Okay, see?” Rose raised one arm as the other lowered her blaster to floor.

The two stormtroopers focused on Hux. One of them cocked their blaster again. “I said drop your weapon.”

Hux cried, his voice becoming almost squeaky, “But I don’t have any!”

“Search him.”

The second trooper had barely begun his search, when the first yelled out and fell to the ground. In spite her small frame, Rose had leapt on to the stormtrooper and tackled him to the ground. Hepseba jumped for the stormtrooper’s blaster and caught it.

The second trooper turned away from Hux and yelled into his helmet as he fired off a round in the resisters’ direction.

“Immediate backup required!”

Before Hux could react, the loud footsteps of incoming troopers behind him already began their approach. He knew there was no way their boots could be causing such tremendous noise. He could sense their banging syncing up with the furious pump of his heart. The stormtroopers he had trained were on the way to kill him. If they turned out to be anything like Jannah, there was a chance they’d relish that fact. No way out behind him, no weapon to fight with, and no idea what to do.

So Hux did what he does best. He ran.

Hux was free. For the first time since he was sent to the brink of death, Hux could roam fully unimpeded. He had a chance. The galaxy was waiting. He could return to the shuttle, take it somewhere far away, back to the Order even.

But no.

However hard he tried, he saw her eyes again. Pleading to be seen. Shining beyond hope, beyond witness. What was it she was begging for? Was it...him?

Or maybe, if he let himself be honest, it was him who was aching for her.

So he would keep to the mission. Find the computer, shut the planet down, get his amnesty, and then...Yes, and then, perhaps something else.

He was not a rebel, but Hux was a man who knew how to get things done.

Hux finally stopped running and took in his surroundings. He was delighted to discover his aborted escape had led him close to their final goal. He was just down the corridor from the central computer room. He could do this.

She didn’t trust him? Fine. He would show her that he was a man who would finish what he set out to do. He would prove he was good enough. Not for this rebellion or whatever government was to follow. For her, and for himself.

His dad always said he wasn’t good enough either.

The door let him through with a simple thumb scan on the side of the door. Hux sighed. This meant that, for better or worse, his access to First Order systems was still working. Such sloppiness would not have been permitted when he controlled the army.

The room was empty. Stupidly, Hux realized that he hadn’t had a plan had it been otherwise. That was everyone else’s job, but he had made it there first. Before him was a great glass window, which gazed down into the building’s central chamber. Pieces of hardware piled on top of each other like they were an uncontrolled fungal outgrowth on a single monstrous machine. Tech lined the chamber in an mishappen mass of metal and circuitry that extended farther than he could even hope to see. Next to it was the port for central control. For the complex role it played in the production of the entire planet, its size was comically small. He was already in the computer system when he felt the cold barrel of a blaster on his temple.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I had no choice.” His voice was steady. Even though he had no idea what he would say, he tried to sound confident. He knew that’s what she would do.

“Turn around slowly and present identification.” The voice was harsh. There would be no trickery with this figure. Hux turned slowly and gazed at the officer. He was young, but certainty dominated his face. “What are you doing and who are you?”

Who are you?

Yes, the general thought, who indeed.

“Commander, you need to stand down this instant before I bring all the might of our glorious Order down on you.” Hux felt the old officer possess him once more. “With every moment you delay, you write another initial on your writ of execution by a squad of stormtroopers.”

The office slid his pistol down Hux’s chest until it was pointed in his stomach. His voice shook a bit, clearly rattled by the authority in Hux’s voice, but his blasting arm remain undeterred. “I said, identification.”

“I am General Armitage Hux and you will lower your weapon immediately.”

“General Hux? General Hux is dead.”

Hux sneered with superiority. “Am I? Allow me to demonstrate.”

Hux calmly placed his hand on the computer terminal. With a low hum, the computer opened once more for him.

A brief moment of shocked silence. After a moment, the officer ventured, “…not many could pull that trick, I grant you.” The officer pulled his blaster back from Hux’s body, but kept it trained on him. “Nevertheless, I demand to see ID.”

“A commander does not make demands of a general. I don’t carry ID chips for sniveling dogs like you.”

“If you are him” the officer gave a hint of a tremble. He knew that this was one of those moments on which fortunes turned, the difference between a promotion and an execution, “you will follow the military protocol of this base.”

Hux’s insistence on procedure throughout the army had turned on him. He began to reach into his tunic, intent on slapping the officer backwards across the face. Perhaps a display of dominance would put the officer in line. At the very least, he’d get a hit in before he died.

Hux didn’t get that chance. A pair of stormtroopers marched into the room, dragging a familiar figure behind them.

“Sir, we found an unauthorized person lurking down the corridor.”

Idiots, thought Hux as Hepseba was dragged along the floor, the purple in her lekku having acquired spots of deeper violet amongst the softer hues of her heads tails. How often do you see a twi’lek among First Order officers anyways?

“What shall we do with them sir?”

The officer thought and then grinned with malice, exposing his tombstone-like teeth as he did.

“You say you’re General Hux? Prove it.” He offered Hux the blaster. “The general is well-known to enjoy carrying out summary executions himself.”

It was a lie of course. Hux would never do something when he could order it to be done for him. But that was wasn’t how this game was played. It didn’t matter what the truth was, as long as he had a rebel prisoner in front of him and a charged blaster being placed in his hands. Proof would only come with death.

Hux held the blaster tightly, while doubts unlike any he had ever felt gathered in his stomach. Sweat wicked the device as he began to palm at the trigger. Hepseba was on the ground, her stomach flat against the floor and face looking up at Hux. The look carved on it conveyed the last feeling most soldiers know—abject fear.

In his victim’s eyes, Hux didn’t see an enemy. He saw himself. He saw the pendulum of power swing between them, and he remembered what it had been like being on the other side ever since he was captured by the Resistance. In Hepseba’s trembling, he saw a scared little boy being taught a harsh lesson by someone who controlled everything. He saw his own face, defeated and at the point of tears. He wouldn't be killing an enemy, just a shadow of himself.

Hux wasn’t sure what kind of man he was now...but he knew he wasn’t that boy anymore. The boy who was controlled by fear. He had made up his mind. He would not kill Hebsepa. He would shoot his way out or somehow escape but he would not execute someone who didn’t deserve it.

The tragedy was no one would ever know all that.

Hux didn’t really have time to process what happened next—it was a blur of laser fire and yells. He saw Jannah storm into the room, and Rose rushing after her. He felt a great force land on his stomach and smelled sizzling meat waft in his nose. With horror he felt a pain of hunger as he smelled his own flesh char. He knew that smell—he had been shot. Again.

And the world went black.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux has a lot of explaining to do to Rose, if only he could find her. Another mysterious presence on the ship offers clarity, and direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally published as a Twitter fic at @theslytherwin. The work has been compiled here and lightly edited.

An infinity later, the first words he heard were:

“As a general, you must have spent your whole career on your feet. Now your whole career as a rebel has been spent on your back. Then again, you’re not really a rebel, are you?”

Hux wanted to ask what happened. Where was he? Was Hepseba okay? But all that came out was “Warl...wum.”

Wincing with pain, Hux slowly turned to see Rose a mere inch from his face, her lips tortuously close to his. Lips that were turned in a frown.

“Jannah would have killed you. Well, she tried to. I stopped her from firing a second volley. You should be dead.”

A belabored breath. Hux wanted desperately to respond, to say anything, but his mouth refused to produce more than a soft groan. His torso was aching intolerably, and he couldn’t even feel his legs.

“I don’t know why I bothered. You-you-you,” the words didn’t seem to come to Rose. “I believed you could change. I was unsure of what you would become, but I knew with every fiber of my soul that you could change. I begged the general to give you that chance. I thought,” Rose paused to clutch her half-moon pendant, squeezing so tightly her knuckles turned white. The strain was not just there. Everywhere, Rose’s body had seized up, trembling with some chaotic emotion, “When you looked at me...your eyes...I know that look. I thought I knew that look.”

That look. The loss in Rose’s eyes, the wanting, the pleading for something. She had recognized it in him after all.

But now, as Hux painstakingly moved his gaze up her face, he did not see recognition anymore. She let him in, but only so far as to stare into her eyes. There were like a hallow tree. What lay behind was now locked away, denied to him completely. The two of them were the same—he had seen that in her. Now, though, she was irretrievably gone.

Weeks went by. His confinement this time wasn’t lonely. He read the news and got caught up on galactic events. The First Order was still on the march, but fractured and headless as its leaders fought for supreme power. The Resistance continued to grow in strength but was struggling in its transformation from small guerilla bands to an organized military power. In between it all chaos reigned. Delegates from the provisional government were convening on Naboo to discuss what shape the eventual permanent government would take. The Resistance supported the new government, and even sent representatives to it, though most leaders in the Resistance had declined to lead the formation of the it. In the meantime, the war raged on. Who knows when or how it would end? Hux wasn’t sure he cared anymore. He was no longer on the Hammerhead, but a heavy cruiser, the Alliance, that had survived the destruction of the New Republic fleet (—at his hands, his brain stubbornly refused to let him forget). Actual doctors, not just droids, attended him and he was permitted to follow a regular sleep schedule. He could even leave his room, still hooked up to his medical machinery and under armed supervision of course. Despite all that, he was more a prisoner now than ever. The commander never came by, nor did anyone who wasn’t mandated to treat or guard him.

The closest thing has had to a friend was PB-9, an old New Republic security droid, first generation, who had been modified for medical duty as the doctors’ assistant as well. His model of droid was intended for one purpose alone, and the additional medical protocols and whatever else the Resistance had downloaded into him overstuffed the droid’s programming, which made it difficult to communicate with. PB’s understanding of what was going on at any given point tended to waver.

“PB?” asked Hux one day, more out of boredom than actual interest. “Where is this ship stationed?”

“This is the Alliance.”

“Right and the Alliance is located where?”

PB’s old servos eeked in confusion, “The Alliance is between the former worlds of the New Republic and allied systems.”

“Thank you, PB.” Hux sighed.

No one else knew what happened on Liara. Hux knew. Hux knew that he had made a choice, a choice to be something more. To be beyond fear. Now he was more paralyzed by fear than ever before. Was there any decision that wouldn’t leave him alone and afraid?

Rose Tico. She saw something in him. If he could just find her—explain what happened, beg for another chance—then maybe she would understand. He had to get to her, somehow.

“Did you hear what I said?” the doctor, an Abednedo whose mouth tendrils jangled with every word, queried.

“Pardon?” Hux hadn’t, his mind had been elsewhere.

Dr. Yured shook their head, “Mr. Hux, I was saying physically you are completely healed. However, if you keep receiving this kind of trauma on a regular basis, you’ll find that your life will be very short.”

“I’m sorry, aren’t you a military doctor? Do you tell the soldiers you treat to just, what, not get shot?”

Dr. Yured chose to ignore the comment, “Your mental health seems to be in good shape, though your mind does seem to wander. If it were up to me, though, you’d be discharged”

This was news to Hux. “Is it not up to you?”

They shook their head, tendrils following suit. “Command is still unsure what to do with you. You are no longer my patient, but you are still to be confined here until further notice”

“I see. I suppose there are worse transitions from patient to prisoner”

The doctor began to stand as they added, “We’ll send down a medical droid to unhook you from the machinery, you no longer need it. In the meantime, the medical section will still be responsible for watching over you. Is there anything you need?”

Hux thought about it. He would no longer be attached to any machinery for the first time since he awoke. That provided him with the chance for unprecedented mobility around the ship.

“Would it be possible to go on a walk?”

“Certainly. PB-9 can accompany you once it’s done.”

Hux could hear the creaking of PB-9’s joints as he removed the last diode attached to Hux’s body.

“Initiating bedside manner. Hello, Mr. Hux, you are...?” the droid’s flat tone faltered as he seemed to forget what he wanted to say. “How?”

“Fine, PB, just fine.”

“Dr. Yured has requested you go on a walk. This is,” the droid flinched. Most basic droids had a specified purpose. Overload them and they could go a little haywire, “acceptable to you?”

“Yes, PB, it is.”

The corridors were empty. Hux knew this ship was important for some reason, though he wasn’t quite sure why. He suspected he was being taken through empty side halls for appearances’ sake. Not that he looked like much these days. He wore a plain white tunic and matching pants. His hair had grown longer than would ever be allowed in the First Order military, tickling the back of his neck with loose hairs, and he was sporting a short red beard.

“You know PB, I’m a war hero.”

PB’s humanoid limbs gyrated abnormally as he turned to face Hux. “To the First Order.”

“No, to the Resistance.” Hux doubted his words would get anywhere. The droid wasn’t exactly dumb, but he certainly had been overclocked just a little bit too far. Hux’s plan could work. “I helped locate a First Order factory.”

“You are First Order.”

“I was, a long time ago. Now I am waiting for my pardon. Should be any day now.”

The yellow sensor light of PB’s upper head appendage flickered briefly. “My records show no pardon.”

“Then your records are wrong.”

“Impossible.”

“PB, when Dr. Yured is gone, your primary function is to do what?”

It was the only phrase PB could say without hesitation, “Protect the health and well-being of Armitage Hux and ensure he does not escape.”

“Wouldn’t you say a pardon is vital to my well-being going forward?”

The snap of wires working in PB’s servobrain was audible. The Resistance clearly has little experience with treating injured, high-profile prisoners.

PB must have still been calculating, because he didn’t notice the mouse droid whirling in front of him. He stepped forward a little too quickly, catching the mouse droid’s head, and falling, carrying Hux down with him.

Hux’s knees took a little beating but was otherwise fine. He looked over at PB to see that one of his legs had come loose from his body.

Hux could tell himself he did it to keep alive his chances of reaching his destination, but he suspected he might have helped either way. His engineering was not particularly strong, but the leg hadn’t been severed. Only detached, and it was an easy fix. He could even do it without tools.

After fifteen minutes of tinkering, PB managed to stand up on his own.

PB stared at Hux for a long moment, cocking his head to the side in imitation of humanoids.

“You helped me.”

“Quite.”

PB’s servos whizzed harder than usual.

“I will help. Take you to Resistance High Command.”

PB started walking, with purpose this time. Hux had to almost jog to catch up to the droid.

“Wait, wait!” Hux’s begged, just a little too loudly and a little too quickly. “High Command is here?”

“Indeed. High Command here for Mid Rim...” PB searched for the word, “operations.”

Why would he be on the same ship as the Resistance leaders? Regardless, if PB took him there, they’d throw him right back to his room. Maybe even to the brig.

“No, no, I need to find Rose Tico. She’s the one who promised me the pardon.”

PB paused. “Rose Tico’s location is...unknown.”

Hux was desperate, on the point of exasperation. “Blast it, then who the bloody hell can help me?

PB started to hum again, louder this time, and then began to push forward again.

“PB? PB! Where are you going?”

“Find help.”

It was a struggle to keep up with the droid. Hux was fully healed, but the droid was still programmed for combat speed. Eventually, the droid turned on to a main, busier corridor. A few heads turned to look at the pair, but no one lingered long enough to think much about it. As Hux had suspected, no one recognized him. He might be any other wounded soldier stretching his muscles.

“PB?” Hux asked once they finally stopped. They had reached the crew cabins and stood in front of a nondescript door. “Where are we?”

“Help.” the droid said plainly, pointing to the door.

Behind the door, Hux could hear two voices. The woman’s was louder, but sad, thoughtful. The second voice was a man’s, but it sounded so far away that Hux couldn’t make out much more. It was like that second voice was speaking through a tube stuffed with cloth.

“Should I just—”

PB banged his mighty metallic fist on the door, much too loudly.

The door opened, and a familiar face peered out.

“Help.” PB said with monotonal pride.

“You’re the prisoner” she said. Her skin was kissed by the sun, her hair up in a complicated set of buns. She wore tan robes and at her belt hung what Hux knew all too well to be a lightsaber.

“You’re the Jedi.” Hux blurted out, unthinking. If he could reach for a blaster, he would. He had no patience for any more followers of that ancient religion.

The Jedi turned to the droid. Slightly concerned, but mostly confused. “You said you needed help? For this prisoner?”

The droid did the equivalent of nod, which was just another snap of his circuit as his head jerked upwards.

“Come sit...General Hux, correct?

Hux walked lightly into her cabin. The room was sparse, with a few old books laying around. It was not what Hux would have expected from his prior experiences with these religious fanatics. Ren had prized objects, decrepit curios from forgotten times. This room was the opposite. Functional, lived in, and that was about it. Most curiously, however, the quarters were empty of other people.

“I’m not quite a general anymore...where is the other person?”

The Jedi looked out the viewport into the infinite sea of stars, searching. “What other person?”

“I thought I heard a man—from outside, it sounded like you were talking to someone.”

“You must have misheard.” she said plainly, though her gaze was still intently locked on the stars. “What should I call you then, if not general?”

“Hux is fine.” The Jedi forced her focus away from the infinity in the viewport and gestured towards the floor, where two cushions were assembled facing each other, as if the Jedi had already prepared to speak with someone else. Magic nonsense, Hux thought, though he felt a small shiver creep up his spine nonetheless. Following her entreaty, Hux sat opposite the woman. “And you? Master Jedi?”

She ignored the question, looking at him with muscles tensed and distrust written on her face. Hux was afraid as he withstood her stare. Afraid of her power, sure, but also afraid that she had already made up her mind about him.

“Why are you here, Hux?”

“I’m trying to find Commander Tico. I need her to listen to me, she needs to know, when we were on our mission together-”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Hux felt intensely awkward. The Jedi’s eyes were moving quickly with dead focus, examining every centimeter of Hux’s face. If Jannah’s eyes could see his sins, the Jedi’s eyes could see...something else, perhaps even...something more.

“Rose already knows what she needs. I asked what YOU need. Why are you here Hux? Rose told me what happened on Liara.”

Hux’s heart sank. He felt sure he could convince Rose of his innocence, but this Jedi was ready to kick him to the brig.

“She also said she thought you might actually be changing.” Hux’s heart leaped into his throat, until the Jedi’s voice turned deadly sharp. “Before you betrayed them, that is. So why did you? Betray them?”

Red-faced and flustered, Hux jumped to his feet. “I didn’t betray them!”

Before he knew it, a fiery gold blade was hovering dangerously close to his neck. The Jedi was still sitting, but her blade extended so that the slightest movement from Hux would end him. He could feel the hairs on the back on his skull beginning to singe. “I don’t like people who betray my friends.”

Something between stupidity and bravery roused within Hux. “I saved your friends! The stormtrooper and the Wookiee, and your General Dameron too!”

The Jedi shut off her blade. “Yes. You did. I’m sorry.”

Hux sighed in relief and moved to sit back down. “Yes. It’s all right”

“You did save them. You might have saved the Resistance, in fact. Although no one seems to know why. Rose doesn’t know why.”

Hux ignored it. It was clear bait, and he was going to be in charge of telling his own story.

“I made a mistake on Liara. But it wasn’t what it seemed like and the commander, she deserves to hear it from me, what happened-” No that wasn’t true, he knew. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I deserve the chance to explain to her.”

The Jedi looked over him curiously. If she could sense the feeling—the feeling that had been boiling inside Hux since Rose’s dark eyes first met his while he was in recovery all those months ago—she didn’t show it. Yet she seemed to sense that there was more beyond his words.

The Jedi opened both palms and extended them in front of her. “Take my hands.”

Hux hesitated. “Why?”

“I need to know if you’re telling the truth. I need to know you won’t hurt my friend.”

If this is what it took, he would do it. He placed his hand flat on her palms as she closed her eyes. What happened next was almost indescribable. He could feel his mind behind prodded—not hard, and once he let her in, the prodding stopped. As she probed, he saw flashes—memories. Nearly all of them were about her. The moments he spent lost in her eyes, wanting to hold her, looking down and seeing the things he liked in himself looking back up at him. Rose Tico, the purest expression of his heart and soul.

The Jedi opened her eyes again.

“Do you love her?”

“I...I don’t know. Truthfully, I don’t. But...” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

The Jedi looked off to the side, as if seeing something far away, beyond her reach. “But I do. Cabin 770, your droid will know the way. Go.”

Stunned, Hux stood up and headed for the exit. He couldn’t help turning as he left and asked, “Why did you let me go? What did you see? When you were in my mind, I mean.”

The Jedi remained sitting, but her voice settled into an eerie, hollow sort of tone. As if reciting something she had learned painfully, and the lesson had been branded upon her heart. “Life is a series of chances we mistakenly call choices, until we’re presented with a true alternative. Sometimes we meet people who show us...another way. A better way.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. Still, she had helped him. “Thank you, Master Jedi.”

“Be careful when you reach her. You might not find what you are searching for.” She stood and bowed slightly. “May the Force be with you, Armitage.”

Hux stood back outside once again, alone and confused. He felt like...like he had learned something from the Jedi, but he wasn’t sure what.

PB’s shoulders raised in curiosity as Hux exited the room, and the yellow of his sensor flashed in mock excitement.

“Help?” The droid asked with hope in its vocabulator.

“Yes, PB, help. We’re looking for cabin 770.”

PB whirred his old gears with excitement and started off in a run once again, this time towards Hux’s final, desperate goal.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The angsty confrontation chapter we all knew was coming. Angsty angst angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally published as a Twitter fic at @theslytherwin. The work has been compiled here and lightly edited.

“So this is it?” Hux puffed as he caught up with the racing, sparking hulk of PB.

“Affirm-” buzzed the droid, “-attive”

Never before had Hux felt so scared. He thought he had conquered fear before, yet it just closed in tighter. The only way forward was to push harder, towards what he feared most.

“Mr. Hux?”

Hux sighed. It wasn’t the first time they had gone over this. “You can just call me Hux, PB.”

“Understood, Mr. Hux.”

He might have rolled his eyes at that, but it would be a rather pointless display for a droid, “What is it, PB?”

The droid walked over and raised one of his giant fists. The adrenaline already pumping in Hux nudged at him to run but before he could, PB gently rested his hand on Hux’s head.

“Hair—mess. PB-9 will fix.”

Rationally, Hux knew PB shouldn’t have noticed the quality of his hair. Yet as PB stroked the fluff of his orange hair into a more suitable position, Hux was only able to say one thing.

“I—thank you, PB. I’m glad to have a friend like you.”

“Friend?”

“Yes, friend.”

“Friend.”

PB’s wiring crackled in approval, as if laughing at something new in this human.

“I’ll be back PB, wait here.”

Despite his fear, Hux felt the smallest tinge of that one feeling he rarely named—despised, even. He knew though that if he stared in her eyes again, he might actually feel it—hope.

The doors slid open. The room was messier than the Jedi’s, with various tools and spare mechanical parts scattered over every surface that wasn’t a bed. On that bed, the sheets ruffled and the blankets gathered in a clump at the base, sat her. She wore a dark green jumpsuit that fit her as snuggly as Hux cared to wear his own uniform. He thought about the plain baggy clothes he was wearing, the white shirt with the collar plunging to his chest. He was no longer that general indeed.

He was hoping she might say something first, but she just stared. Still not looking in his eyes, Hux noted forlornly.

“Hi.” Hux said weakly.

No response, just a blank stare, devoid of any reaction.

“I uh...I’m all healed.”

More silence. Hux thought he might as well begin saying what he had come there for.

“Look I know what you thought you saw on Liara—”

That did it.

“What I _thought_ I saw? Excuse me, General, I think I know _exactly_ what I saw.”

Hux could have said anything in response to that and it would have been more helpful than muttering, “I’m not a general, I’m a lieutenant.”

“You were. And now you’re a general again—funny how that works when you’re on the losing side of a war.”

“I’m not on the losing side.” Hux was starting to lose his patience. “I mean, I’m with you”

She scoffed at that. Rose started to move around the room, avoiding the captivity of his gaze.

“I don’t know who let you out, but I’m calling security to send you back.”

Hux’s blood chilled. He ran over, grabbing her hand, which had started to move to find a comm. He was practically on top of her now. She looked up at him, her breath becoming heavier.

“Let go of my hand.”

“Please listen to me.”

Her eyes met his. In that moment, Hux experienced an undefinable euphoria. He had been so long denied and now, finally, his satisfaction. Only her eyes were shining with something that Hux could not quite make out. The darkness was beautiful, but it was tinged with something raw and undefinable.

“No, you listen to me.” She spoke calmly, but firmly. “Let go of my hand and I will consider listening to what you have to say.”

He did as she asked. He moved aside to allow her to back away from him. She chose to stay close.

“The First Order cornered me on Liara. I was in the central computer trying to shut down the factory system when they held me up at blaster point. I tried to convince them I was still a general and they wanted me to prove it by executing Hepseba. I was already searching for alternatives. I was never going to do it, I promise you.”

Rose bent her head to stare up at Hux’s chin and through gritted teeth responded, “Bullshit.”

“Why would I be in the central computer if I wasn’t trying to fulfill the mission? If I had wanted to escape, I could have just chosen to leave. Rose, please.”

She backed away from him. She seemed to consider that, even as mistrust remained on her face. Without answering him, she scowled and murmured, “Did I say you could call me Rose?”

“Well, you could call me Armitage...if you liked.”

“I won’t be calling you at all once you’re in prison.”

“Well, you haven’t been calling me much while I’ve been recovering anyway.”

Stalemate. Stillness, neither dared moved any further for fear of giving the other ground.

“Even if you weren’t going to kill Hepseba—even if everything you said is true,” Rose grimaced, “it wouldn’t make up for what you’ve done as a First Order general.”

“That’s not what you said when you recruited me. You said you didn’t believe in destroying what you hate.”

“Yeah? Well, who says I hate you?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You do. And you should. But I’m trying to be better.”

Rose scoffed, “After the things you’ve done? You think you can just _be_ better?”

“She told me you thought so.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed, “Who did?”

“The Jedi—Skywalker, or whatever she’s calling herself now.”

“You talked to Rey? She’s barely come out of her quarters for anything but official business in months, let alone talk anyone.” Rose didn’t sound like she disbelieved him. Rather, she seemed to accept his claim but sounded hurt when she spoke it aloud.

“She didn’t come out; I went to her.”

Rose paused. She was expecting Hux to say any number of things but talking to her friend wasn’t one of them.

“Rey’s a Jedi, she can believe whatever she wants.” Rose responded firmly. “What I believed back then doesn’t matter either. I know better now. You’re incapable of changing.”

“So, I’m unforgivable?”

“You’re one of the primary perpetrators of this war. You more than any other are responsible for the destruction of Hosnian Prime and the death of billions.”

“Was Kylo Ren unforgivable?”

Rose froze, hesitating for a moment.

“I’ve been catching up on events and heard what everyone has been saying. Ren turned on the First Order to save your Jedi friend. A lot of people are even saying he’s a hero. Started calling him Solo, from what I heard.”

“You’re not Ben. You could never—”

Hux began to rage forward, stepping closer to Rose not just with anger, but with menace.

“Never what? Slaughter innocents? Lead an army upon the galaxy, and still turn around and ask for forgiveness? What has Kylo Ren done to deserve his redemption more than me?”

Rose got close to him, closer than Hux had ever been to her. Any space that remained between them was eliminated. Her lips raised upwards, mere centimeters from him, and her face looking like she wanted to spit as she spoke through gritted teeth.

“Kylo Ren didn’t kill my sister.”

Now he recognized what the darkness of Rose’s eyes were shining with. They were blazing with fury.

“Ah. The dreadnought.”

Rose shook her head at that. “ _Your_ dreadnought.”

Hux stepped backwards slightly. Never mind that he only had a hand in the fighting of that battle, in the creation of the dreadnought, the TIE fighter who must have ultimately killed Rose’s sister. He was in charge of that fleet and as far as Rose would ever see, he was responsible. Hux knew she wasn’t wrong either.

Hux gently retreated and sat down on the corner of the bed, hand on his knees and cupping his chin. He exhaled and, after a moment, asked, “What was your sister’s name?”

Rose remained still, unsure what to make of the change in tone. “Paige. Paige Tico.”

“Tell me about her.”

Rose moved to lean against her desk, pushing aside some machinery for room. Her hand moved towards the necklace she always wore as she inclined into her thoughts.

“When the First Order came to my planet, Hays Minor, it was my sister who decided to protect our family. She took me and our parents and hid us away, in an old mine. She thought we’d be safe there. No one had been there in decades. The mining company had tapped the area beyond profitability, or that’s what Paige thought anyways. She was wrong. When the First Order decides to take your planet, they take everything. They stormed the mine and took away my parents. Right before they reached us, my parents ordered me to run, so I did. It was…horrible. I thought they were dead and had died so that I could live. I was tormented by that thought for two days, alone in a hiding place I found. By the end, Paige found me, but not before I had been infected with the guilt of leaving our parents.

Paige—she became more than my protector; she was my hero. She taught me to be brave, and to harden my resolve. Together we learned to resist the First Order on our planet. We began raiding their factories and mines. Eventually, Paige inspired me to attempt a rescue of our parents from prison. Only, the thing was, I didn’t tell her—I wanted to show her I could be like her. That I could save our people. When we got to the prison, the stormtroopers were ready for us. We were outmatched by dozens of troopers, but still just barely managed to escape their firepower. My fellow rebels and I made it to the prison cell, with more casualties than I want to remember. What I saw there shocked me. I saw my mom and dad. Alive. They were-” Rose’s voice started to crack, the emotions of the memory daring her to continue, “they had been kept together in prison. It’s the only kindness the First Order ever granted them.”

Rose paused, her mouth starting to form the words but not finding the right sound. Hux said nothing. It was her story to tell, not his. A few long moments later, she continued.

“When we reached the cell, the stormtroopers closed in. I thought we were dead until Paige came storming into the prison hall. She had caught wind of my plan and knew it was a trap. She and her crew started fighting the stormtroopers. I tried opening the prison barrier, but my mom leaned her face against it and whispered to me, ‘Go. Get off this planet and do what you two were meant to do. Save people. Resist. I love you.’”

The tears started falling down Rose’s face, “We were learning to be soldiers and that meant learning to make the difficult choice. I knew that if I left them, I could find the Resistance and get the First Order off my planet. But it meant leaving them again. It meant doubling the guilt for leaving my parents a second time and knowing that I wouldn’t get a third. Somehow, I managed to tell my parents I loved them and got out of there. The remains of our crews got out safely, and Paige and I snuck on the first transport off-planet. We found the Resistance. Eventually, our new rebel squadron was permitted to go to our home planet and see if a liberation effort could be mounted. Do you know what we found when we got there?”

Hux did, not because he knew anything about Rose’s homeworld, but because he had heard this story play out over and over and knew what happens when the First Order decides to mine a planet’s resources. In fact, he had ordered it done himself before.

“Nothing. The mines were empty of people and minerals. The surface of the planet had been bombed to shards of glass and the stormtroopers were gone.

Paige saved me that day. We couldn’t save our parents, but we learned to fight so other children wouldn’t have to lose their parents like we did. That’s what Paige taught me. She was my hero, and now she’s gone.”

Hux was quiet. He knew there were no words that could be said. No action he could take that would ever take away her pain. More than ever, he knew why she was afraid to look him in the eyes. How could she ever see anything more than her sister, dying in the mirror of his eyes?

He walked over to her, slowly. He moved his hand towards her, waiting for her to withdraw. When she didn’t, he laid his fingers gently on hers and looked in her eyes. She didn’t look away. Good. He wanted the next words to be the ones Rose thought of when she gazed into his eyes.

“I am so truly sorry for your loss, Rose. Paige was a brave woman and an inspiration.”

“Thank you.”

“Rose, I mean it.” he squeezed her hand just a little tighter. “She’s the kind of person who inspires me to be better.”

Rose’s eyes were still wet, but some new expression entered it. Something between anticipation and anger, catching everything in between. She let the moment linger and finally choked, “Then why?”

“Why what?”

Rose breathed deeply, allowing the words she’d long craved an answer to flow out.

“You aided my friends. You helped save the Resistance. Why?”

Hux instinctually backed away, his hands still grasping hers. “I can’t explain it.”

“You can’t? Or you just don’t want to?” the sadness started to fade from her voice.

Hux let go of Rose’s hand and backed up a few steps further, feeling rage peak into his voice. “Please. Please I am trying to make myself better. All I’ve been asking for is a chance.”

“A chance?” anger replaced all remaining sadness in her voice, “We already gave you a chance.”

Hux’s face morphed to match her fury. “I—I told you it wasn’t like that! Please, I want you to trust me!”

“Why should any of us trust you if we don’t even know why you want to help us in the first place? You expect us to believe you turned to spite your Supreme Leader?”

His wrath boiled over. So few were able to fully and completely penetrate the mask of cool professionalism that Hux wore when he was in command. But Hux was no longer in command, and he wasn’t dealing with just anyone. His rage, so long hidden under subservience, broke though.

“I wanted Ren dead!”

Hux practically yelled the words, his face turning pink with rage, “I wanted that rich pompous boy who only ever had love to suffer. He had everything—everything!—and rejected it because he couldn’t stand the thought of living in the shadow of Han Solo.”

Rose wasn’t afraid or shocked. She examined Hux’s face for what felt like a long time. Hux already felt the anger flushing out of his face as quick as it had arisen. She laid a gentle hand on Hux’s cheek and finally asked in a calm voice, “Then whose shadow have you been living in?”

* * *

When Brendol Hux is your father, you are told not to dream. You are not an individual, but a servant of the galaxy. The revolution had brought chaos, and it was your duty to restore order. Order meant fear, and Brendol taught his son what fear meant.

When Brendol Hux is your father, you don’t just learn fear. Fear is seared into your flesh. Literally, too.

One of Hux’s earliest memories was his mother being taken away. She wasn’t his father’s wife, and that made her expendable to a man like Brendol. Armitage thought about her often as a child, but even that luxury was beaten out of him. Most of the time, Armitage was treated like the cadets his father trained. Subject to the same conditioning, training, breaking. Only, it was one thing to be completely destroyed as a child and rebuilt as a soldier. It was another when it was your father doing the destroying.

As he grew older, the beatings stopped, even if the fear never left him. His father grew weaker and frailer, while Armitage grew stronger, more brutal. The more he could feel his father failing, the stronger the flame burned inside of Armitage. The galaxy would learn the meaning of fear, young Armitage decided, because the galaxy wasn’t just his to serve. Service meant reward. It wasn’t one of those lessons his father taught him with words, but one that Armitage had learned through observing him.

The more people Brendol brought in line, the more people he made fear, then the more powerful he became. The answer to chaos was fear, and with fear came power. If he was to become the man his father wanted him to be and bring order, Armitage had to gain the ultimate power. Power which, he would learn bitterly over the years, he could never attain. Even after his father’s passing, Armitage kept striving to keep his father’s dream for him alive. Achieve power and save the galaxy. However high he rose though, there was always someone in his way. First it was Sloane. Then Snoke. Then Ren. All figures who agreed that the path to domination lied in power, but never understood what ultimate power meant. Their goal was never bringing everyone under their thumb in order to create a safe galaxy. They only wanted power for power’s sake.

And Ren. Ren was the most odious one. He never saw Starkiller Base as a path to conquest or power or fear or security at all. No, he wanted to hunt down Luke Skywalker. And when Skywalker was gone, it was the girl. Hux could hear his father whispering into his ear at that time: “He’s throwing the galaxy away for that woman. He doesn’t have the will to do what must be done. When I left your mother behind, I did it for the sake of the galaxy. We are servants to order, and serving means making them fear.”

Armitage never knew what power was for himself. He never even knew why he wanted it. It was always his father’s dream, or Snoke’s manipulation, or Ren’s orders. When he examined his wants, he realized that his actions were not fueled by his own desires, but the wishes of others. He was never his own person. Not until he made the decision to turn on the First Order, and feed secrets to the Resistance.

That decision made him whole. It made him powerful. It made him think there was finally a chance at bringing real order to a chaotic galaxy. He was no longer listening to the fiend dangling on his shoulders. Armitage’s choices were finally his own.

* * *

“That,” Hux finally breathed out, having unloaded the story of his upbringing and life, “is why I helped the Resistance. I didn’t lie when I said I didn’t want Kylo Ren to win. I didn’t want any of them to. I wanted out. I wanted to finally be free.”

Any lingering anger fizzled out. Rose remained close to him, her voice straightforward and calm.

“You’re not under their control anymore. Not Snoke, not Kylo Ren, and not your father. You are entirely your own person and it’s time you decided what kind of person you want to be.”

Hux didn’t have to think. He’d known the answer for a long time. Rose’s dark eyes had burned it into him, Jannah’s breaking of his conditioning had helped him strive towards it, and now he would finally realize it himself.

“I want to be better. I want to fight for the Resistance. I want to end this war and finally bring peace to the galaxy. When we first met, you told me that nothing will end if we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I want to break that cycle and end the chaos.”

“I believe you.” Rose moved closer still. “I do. If that’s what you want...well, it’s possible.”

“Thank you, Rose.”

Rose stood in place and began fingering her half-moon necklace, lost deep in thought.

“So,” Hux asked, “I’m free then? I can finally get my pardon?”

“What?” Rose clutched the necklace, aghast, “No!”

“But the agreement was—”

“We agreed you would complete a mission _successfully_. Until you have, you’re stuck with me.”

“I don’t think the chancellor’s office would agree with your interpretation of—”

Rose grabbed his hand once more. Her grip was harder than Hux expected, and he could feel the blood flow stop and his hand turned even paler. Her body was close to his, much too close. Her lips pointed upwards, her breath mixing with his own as she whispered the words: “You are mine until I tell you otherwise.”

He leaned into the remaining centimeter between them and whispered back, “If I’m yours, then I’m yours.”

He pushed through any space remaining between them and she was his. Fully his. He felt her melting as she wrapped his hands around her, as his lips finally met what they had been searching for all this time. Their lips connected and for a second, the galaxy was singing.

They were there for the briefest moment. Her hands searched for his chest but pulled away just soon as they found what they were looking for.

“No.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“My sister. I can’t forget that.”

“I know.”

“Armitage?”

Hux was leaving. He’d gotten an answer, even if it wasn’t the one he desired, and he would leave if that’s what she wanted He had known that once they had completed their dance, everything might change. But the sound of his own name from her lips for the first time made him pause.

“In Hangar 2, there’s a shuttle. These are the command codes.”

As she handed them to him, he stared in shock. A minute ago, he thought he might get his pardon, his freedom, his love. Now it was all slipping away in this moment.

“Why?”

“I can’t forgive what you did. I thought for a moment I could but...when our lips touched all I could see was my sister. I believe you’re trying to be better...but I can’t follow you on that journey.”

“I understand, Rose.” As he said the words, they both knew that he meant it.

“The pardons are still a sensitive political issue and after what you did on Liara, I truthfully can’t guarantee you’ll get your pardon if you stay. More likely at this point, you’ll be sent to a real prison. What you’re searching for, you won’t find it here anymore.”

Hux could feel the tears welling in his eyes. He tried not to let it show but was afraid it was too late. He wasn’t sure, but as she started to press the button to open the door, he thought he saw a few tears shining above her cheeks too.

If she saw his tears, she chose not to acknowledge it. “Take the medical droid, I’ll deal with command. I’ll tell them I’m responsible and make sure they don’t go looking for you, or at the very least, give you a head start.”

“Rose…” Hux started as they approached the threshold.

“Some things are worth saving—you are worth saving.” She looked into his eyes fully for a final time. The longing and the loss were there as before, but more distant than ever. “Now go.”

Hux left, knowing it was for the last time.


End file.
